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I’m going to tell two more stories about having my use of Slovak corrected. The stories are representative of a theme of my experience here. I don’t know whether other people learning other languages in other places experience something similar – but I suspect they do. After you read them, I would be happy to hear your theory about why things happen this way – is it something about language, or human nature, or something else?

The first episode happened over a year ago, when I needed to purchase an art canvas for Anya to paint, and to have a photograph printed. I had to go to two different shops, but in both cases I would have to specify the dimensions: “I would like a canvas x cm by y cm”; “I would like a print l cm by w cm.” I was going to these shops right after Slovak, so I asked my tutor how to specify dimensions. She told me to say “x cm za y cm.” That seemed simple enough.

I went to the first shop and asked for a canvas. She asked how big, and I was ready – with some confidence I told her x cm za y cm. She replied by restating the dimensions, but also by correcting me: “x cm na y cm.” “Na,” I repeated, meditatively, musing on my “error.”

“So, my tutor was wrong,” I thought to myself as I walked to the second shop. That’s good to know.

So imagine my disappointment – nay, my very disillusionment – when at the next shop I boldly asked for a print that was “l cm na w cm,” only to hear the clerk repeat the dimension back to me, again corrected: “l cm za w cm”!

Now, I know that language is flexible and even dynamic; I know that there are sometimes dozens of ways to say the same thing in different words. But what troubled me was that if both za and na are legitimate ways to specify dimensions, why did these clerks feel the need to correct me? They clearly understood what I meant. Certainly they knew I was an innocent foreigner, so that if I made a mistake it was naive and not because of some cavalier disregard for the laws of proper Slovak. Did they really need to set me straight?

I can imagine that there are reasonable explanations for this. Perhaps – perhaps, mind you – “za” is only used when specifying the dimensions of art canvases, and “na” is only used when specifying the dimensions of photographs. There are stranger examples of arbitrary technical jargon in language. But in my brief survey of other Slovaks during my post mortem, I couldn’t find one who could confirm that there was a distinction to be made when specifying these various dimensions. Either za or na could be used. So again I ask: Was it necessary to correct me? Twice?

The second story is fresher, for it happened only last week. While making coffee at 4:30 in the morning I splashed some piping hot wet grounds out of the French press onto my wrist, burning my skin well enough to make a few nice bubbles. Later in the morning I was in a meeting with a Slovak and I asked him how to say that I burned myself – and I told him how I did it, with hot coffee. “Popalil som sa,” he answered.

Immediately after that meeting I went to my Slovak tutor, and I wanted to tell her about my morning. When I lifted my sleeve to show her the burn and said to her, “Popalil som sa,” she asked whether I had touched a hot iron. I explained that I had wounded myself with coffee. “Obaril som sa,” she corrected. She made a distinction similar to one we make in English: she told me how to say that I was scalded – burned with a hot liquid. On learning that I felt that I had gained a sophistication in my “command” of Slovak – a new ability to make a relatively small distinction between two closely related ideas with two very different verbs. Alas! I had forgotten the lesson of the correcting clerks.

Two days later I was talking with another Slovak friend. After I proudly displayed my damaged wrist and announced to her, “Obaril som sa,” she offered yet a third way to say I had burned myself. I can’t recall what it was, but it was different.

I have been thinking about these kinds of events lately and wondering where they come from. Part of it is just that gooey nature of language. But is there something else behind it? What do you think?